The Heart is the Soul

Andrew Leigh asks:

Where’s the evidence that the soul does not reside in the heart?

Potential answer: the artificial heart.


I say 'potential' because I suppose you can argue that people with articiial hearts do not have souls anymore. I'm not sure how exactly to prove that right or wrong.

Federalist Paper X

Madison describes one of the benefits of a larger union of states to be that it becomes harder for a majority party to exist. His idea is that the more people a republic needs to encompass, the more diverse those people will be. So it would be harder to unite a significant faction under a common party. Did Madison not have a Grover Norquist equivalent in his time that could figure out a small quantity of exclusive hot button issues (God, Guns, + Gays) that would unite a significant portion of the country?

I'm heartened however to read that the founding fathers looked at the tyranny of the majority as the main evil of democratic institutions. They were hoping that the republic they set up would obviate this type of action. The followup questions and answers missing from the Federalist X include: were the founders wrong about the ability for a majority party to exist in a large republic or is our current state of affairs being governed from just one extreme untenable? If it's possible to govern our republic from a non-centrist position, what can we do about it?

I went to a 3rd party meetup (non-Republican and non-Democratic) the other day, and to me it was obvious how useless our 3rd parties are in the US today. I could see a path for a 3rd party to grow from a local, grass-roots level, but these 3rd parties lack the leadership to make that happen. The activist want the big splash of large national campaigns which are unrealistic for a 3rd party to ever succeed at. So I don't see the majority party symptom to be cured by a 3rd, balancing political party anytime soon. Are there any other solutions out there?

French Farmers

An excuse to rant about one of my favorite topics, the French. Chirac calls our cotton subsidies "scandalous" but off course fails to mention the long list of products subsidized by the Common Agricultural Policy, of which France is the largest beneficiary. Don't bash the US until your own house is order.

DVD sales decline

I just read this in an old Economist issue laying around the flat:

But DVD sales are falling too, largely because viewers over the age of six get bored watching the same movie repeatedly and more films are available on television.

Ha! Even better than Maxim.

Ronald Reagan

Looks like Greenwald also has doubts about the true conservatism of Reagan. Andrew Sullivan responds to Greewald's argument and mentions the 'peace dividend' that Reagan's legacy has provided us with. But we should not regard the 'peace dividend' in such certain terms. Putin is far from an ally, as this recent new item reminds us. Have we bungled the transition of Russia from communism the same way we are now failing and transitioning Iraq from Saddam?